NintendoLogic

WTF I love the Maryland State Athletic Commission now

To be honest, I don't think it's possible for the most part. I really think that wrestling is something you have to get into as a child so that nostalgic attachment can override the logical part of your brain.

Did anybody try to shoot or stab this Audiard fella?

Raw set a record for fewest viewers at 1.686 million. And that's without any asterisks like a holiday or going up against a major sporting event. I suppose you could say the pandemic is something of an asterisk, but if anything, they should benefit from a captive audience. I think it's more a matter of no audiences exposing how stale the format is, like a shitty sitcom being exposed by the lack of a laugh track. If ratings keep falling, I wouldn't be surprised if they brought Vince Russo back. I mean, could he really do any worse?

There's a pretty big difference between harassment on the street and attempted stabbings and shootings, which a lot of old-school heels had to deal with.

https://twitter.com/RickRudeSells The greatest Twitter account in the history of our sport.

Knowing WWE, they'll probably tell Seth to bash Becky in the media for turning her back on wrestling as a loyalty filter. Knowing Seth, he'll probably do it.

Updated top 150:

Well, like Dusty said, it will never be over. Going forward, I'll be updating this whenever a new match enters my top 150 (which I've decided is my cutoff for desert island status). Genichiro Tenryu/Masao Orihara vs. The Great Kabuki/Tatsumi Kitahara (WAR, 7/14/92) After some initial feeling out, Tenryu tries to collapse Kabuki's trachea with a chop to the throat, which Kabuki sells like he just swallowed battery acid. He then retaliates by trying to shatter Tenryu's jaw with uppercuts, so the tone is pretty well established. Orihara looks out of place with his attempts at complex athletic sequences, but at least they usually end with him getting dropped on the mat or kicked in the head. Kabuki and Kitahara unleash a hellacious beating on Orihara, and he sells throughout like he's on death's door. He also gets plenty of chances to show his stuff, most notably on a moonsault from the top turnbuckle to the floor. There's even some surprising learned psychology. When Orihara tries to make a comeback with kicks, Kabuki catches his leg and takes him down with a single leg trip. When Kitahara tries to do the same thing shortly afterward, Orihara shuts him down with slaps and then lays in a stomp for good measure before tagging out. Tenryu spends the bulk of the match standing on the apron and running in to break up pins with soccer ball kicks, but he's a surprisingly giving seller whenever he's the legal man. This is easily the best WAR match I've ever seen outside of the New Japan feud. ****1/2

Kobashi vs. Williams on 8/31/93 is another important one. For better or worse, that was the match that really got the ball rolling on the head drop era in All Japan.

Some galaxy brain takes in this thread right now. Authority-era Stephanie is probably the worst character in history in terms of damage done to the product.

I'm inclined to say that Hardys vs. Edge/Christian at No Mercy was at least as influential as HBK/Ramon. In addition to raising the bar for death-defying spots, it really marked the beginning of sticking as many guys as possible in a ladder match so there was never a break in the action.

I would argue that the modern puro strike exchange can be traced back to Frye/Takayama in Pride.

Shea Stadium actually was in NYC-Queens, to be exact. None of the WWF's cards at Shea came close to selling out, so they probably saw no reason to try to run a larger stadium. As for today, it probably just comes down to capacity. MetLife holds about 30,000 more spectators than Yankee Stadium, which means significantly more revenue both at the gate and in merchandise sales.

I was struck by Stossel talking about a survey that indicated a third of the fans who attended wrestling events thought it was real. I doubt the actual percentage was anywhere near that high, but it was still a non-negligible number. If you think about it, maintaining kayfabe is tantamount to consumer fraud. If the only way wrestling can survive is by defrauding the public, then it deserves to die.

You can see here that Dr. D blew the lid off Sgt. Slaughter faking his military service decades ago.

I can't even say that they still know how to get monster heels over. Look at how they booked Lars Sullivan. Anyway, just when you thought this company couldn't get any more tone-deaf, this is the actual tagline for Money in the Bank.

The Fiend seems to ruin everyone he feuds with. Rollins and Miz both had to turn heel after their programs with him, and Daniel Bryan ended up plummeting into the midcard. Bray Wyatt is a creative guy, but it's not the kind of creativity that leads to good matches or angles.

Doesn't Owens live in Canada? He might not be able to make it into the US for tapings.

AAA made better use of Cain Velasquez than WWE. Think about that for a second.

It seems like they brought Cain in just so Brock could get his win back from their UFC fight. Maybe he's a bigger mark than we all thought.

I've only really seen Cassidy in AEW, but I don't see anything to complain about how he's been presented there. Nobody in AEW sells his weak/lazy offense, so he has to actually try to inflict any damage. It might be different on the indies.

I'd just like to point out that Misawa getting booed was far from unheard of. All Japan crowds tended to boo tactics rather than wrestlers (other than Taue, who seemingly got booed for merely existing in the early 90s), so even Misawa and Kobashi would get booed when they performed illegal double-teams and broke up pins and submissions.

I think a big part of it is the frequent disparity in quality between Raw and Smackdown, which makes it difficult for people to wrap their heads around the idea that the same guy is responsible for both. I have trouble making sense of it myself. But I think the pendulum has shifted over the past year. I've seen plenty of chatter about how crazy and out of touch Vince is handcuffing the genius Paul Heyman and forcing him to book embarrassing cuckolding storylines. In fact, I'd say Heyman is the guy most consistently inexplicably shielded from criticism.

If the South Park episode is any indication, the wrestling fans as rednecks stereotype still holds plenty of currency.